"Quavering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quavering, he saved it from the upper registers). Our task for today is to get at the aggregate pattern. And I assure you, gentlemen, we are going to do that! Now. Mr. Pederson, if ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... in a loud and quavering tone, "is not the ship I meant to board. There's some mistake here! ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... nameless, tingling sense of being haunted. But no! these gracious, silent, waving, weaving shapes are not of the Shadowy Folk, for whose coming the white fires were kindled: a strain of song, full of sweet, clear quavering, like the call of a bird, gushes from some girlish mouth, and fifty soft voices join ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... the poor fellows?" I heard a man behind me ask in a quavering tone, and, turning, I saw one who had declared most vehemently but a few hours previous that if we would surrender the fort we could be assured beyond question of such treatment as civilized people give ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... the inventor was creeping out along one wing toward the intake valve of the port gas tank. Their hearts almost in their mouths, his companions watched his hazardous progress. In spite of the clutching hand of the wind and the quavering of the ship under Ned's inexpert guidance, Tom ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... had been carefully thinking the matter over, said in a low, quavering voice, "Must all the halves be ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... more or less crazy. I took that Jap by the throat and asked him what had happened. He did not know, he said. He had left us to sleep, and rest, sorry for us, and trying to cook us a good meal when we wakened. He was in a shaking fright, trembling and quavering, and I eased up. What was the use of anger and suspicion in the face of this horrible threat of death while you slept? We hove the two bodies overboard, and made a stagger at the pump; but we could not lessen the water in the hold, and at ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... dining-hall on the ground floor, whose high windows opened out upon the sun-porch and the sea, the hostess always presided, an elderly spinster with white hair, colorless eyes, delicately pink cheeks, and a quavering, chirping voice, who always tried to group her red hands to advantage on the white table-cloth. A short-necked old gentleman with ice-gray sailor's beard and dark-blue face was there, a fish-dealer ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... waited. A long cry, quavering at first, and then rising to a fierce top note to die away later in a ferocious, wolfish whine came through the fog. It was uttered by many throats, and in the uncanny, whitish gloom it seemed to be on all sides of them. Then shouts and shots both ceased ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... head turned not to hear him speak; The old voice whistled as through a leak (Out it came in a quavering squeak): "Work for wage is a bargain fit: If there's aught of mine that you seek You must work ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... a strange elricht quavering voice—the voice of those to whom has not been granted their due share of wits. Jock Gordon was famed all over the country for his shrewd replies to those who set their wits in contest with his. Jock is remembered on all Deeside, and even to Nithsdale. He was a man well on in years ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... very forefront of its rush and roar, waved his hat to it and cried: 'After me!' like a captain to his company, and started off at a gallop, it would have obeyed and followed him. 'After me the Deluge!' should be the rallying cry of the monarchy for the renewal of its youth, not the quavering note of its dotage. That is the motto I am going to put on the title-page ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... superannuated tenor quavering out his cavatinas to the glory of minor poetry and the edification ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... to certain isolated facts. At the first explosion, she rushed, terrorized, into the street, gazing up to the heavens, and shaking her withered old fists above her head, she cried in her shrill, quavering voice: "Now look at that! They told us the Kaiser was dying. It's a lie. It's a lie, you see, for here he comes throwing his ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... one day to thank Mist Jenkyns for many little kindnesses, which I did not know until then that she had rendered. He had suddenly become like an old man; his deep bass voice had a quavering in it, his eyes looked dim, and the lines on his face were deep. He did not—could not—speak cheerfully of his daughter's state, but he talked with manly, pious resignation, and not much. Twice over he said, "What Jessie has been to us, God only knows!" and after the second ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... he fought the pain that racked him. When he at last spoke again his voice was so weak that Harlan had to kneel and lean close to him to hear the low-spoken words that issued from between his quavering lips: ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... more truly respectable than the appearance of this ancient magistrate, in long black robe with fur edgings, high ruff around his thin, pointed face, and decent skull-cap covering his bald old head, quavering forth to unsympathetic ears a temperate and unanswerable defence of things which in all ages the noblest minds have ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... voice quavering, "do me the honor to look in my eyes. Study me from the viewpoint of an honest man. Tell me whether you will believe what I have to say to you. Do not be too quick. ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... neighbor and arch-enemy. In fact, the whole corridor was alive with the news of her defeat. At the lunch-table it was the sole topic of conversation, and in the library old Colonel Rockwell—in the pauses of a quavering rendition of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep"—bet Mr. Patterson three of the cigars his nephew always sent him on Fridays that Mrs. Walker, being a woman of spirit, would not yield even ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the counterscarp at Dunkirk, and I found myself, when I should have been helping the defence, actually cheering on the attack. My very heart rose when I saw the bull-dog fellows clambering up the breach with their pikes at the trail, and never quavering in their psalm-tune, though the bullets sung around them as thick as bees in the hiving time. And when they did come to close hugs with the Flemings, I tell you they set up such a rough cry of soldierly joy that my pride in them as Englishmen overtopped my hatred of them ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... brokers and horse-dealers flitted to and fro bargaining with the peasants. In this hubbub of voices, in midst of bargaining and quarrels, mixed with the shrill voices of women and squalling children, sounded the quavering voice of old Abel unweariedly at his task of reciting. The surging elements around did not distract him; on the contrary, they seemed to stimulate him, as his voice sounded ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... had not followed hers, thought her mad and shrank farther; but the eyes of those who saw what she did reflected her look. In the doorway the British woman was standing, wagging her head in time to a silly quavering song that she was singing with lips so distorted as to be almost unrecognizable. Her once florid face was ashen gray, and now as she quitted the door post and came toward them she reeled in her walk, stumbling over stones ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... was opened. A feeble voice uttered a quavering cry of joy that sounded like wailing, and a figure emerged so suddenly and distinctly from the blackness that Mr. Lacy started. It was Thomas Robinson, who crept out white and shaking, with a wild, haggard look. He ran to Mr. Eden like a great girl. "Don't let ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... represent the original primitive cry of her species,—totally unmodified by centuries of domestication. It begins with a stifled moan, like the moan of a bad dream,— mounts into a long, long wail, like a wailing of wind,—sinks quavering into a chuckle,—rises again to a wail, very much higher and wilder than before,—breaks suddenly into a kind of atrocious laughter,—and finally sobs itself out in a plaint like the crying of a little child. The ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... crouched at his master's feet. For a while there was only the ringing turmoil of his own quickened blood in the young man's ears. But presently, up from the southern slope, rose the sound he had heard some minutes before—a long, quavering note, ending in a ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... high-pitched and quavering. Something in his manner struck a vague terror to my heart. "Why, Peter, if you care that much I shall be glad to have you go. So will Blackie, I am sure. Come, we'll go down now. He'll ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... more than willing. And they had no sooner settled themselves among the bare branches of the oak when Simon started to amuse himself by giving his well-known quavering whistle. ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Grandpa fell to saluting, and calling out commands in his quavering old voice, and trying to stand upon ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... voice, shrill and quavering, with an accent of anger that increased each time the summons ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... his two hands. "Don't you understand, Meleese? Jean and I have fought—he is bound hand and foot up there in the cabin—and I am waiting for you—for you—" He pressed her face against him, her lips so close that he could feel their quavering breath. "I have come to fight for you—if you won't go," he whispered tensely. "I don't know why your people have tried to kill me, I don't know why they want to kill me, and it makes no difference to me now. I want you. ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... for a long time with intense enjoyment. Obviously he had preserved intact the innocence of mind which is easily amused. But when his hilarity had exhausted itself, he made a professional remark in a self-assertive but quavering voice: ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... quavering song well sung, the couplet neatly capped, the back turned to the charging bull, the mantilla draped with exquisite provocativeness; all that was lo flamenco. "On this coast, senor ingles, we don't work much, ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... man of fifty stepped quavering out of the corner, his betrothed beginning to sob on ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... likely to reissue thence than was one of the frail nuns built into the wall in the old times likely to come stepping out again. Bobby has at length ceased to offer me every object which it devolves upon him to hand me, with a quavering voice and a prolonged stammer, since, though I was at first excellently vulnerable by this weapon of offense, I am now becoming hornily hard and indifferent to it. We have stepped over the boundaries of June ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... cried Gascoyne, in a quavering whisper, and for a moment Myles felt the chill of goose-flesh creep up and down his spine. But the next moment ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... a quavering voice. It was the speech of the old Negro track-walker, taking two days to get to his dying daughter because he could not afford the railroad ticket that would have brought him to her in two hours. Donny recognized the high, cracked, ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... exclaimed, and strolled to the door. The hansom was disappearing round the corner. "That's all right," he repeated in more quavering tones as he returned to the drawing-room and saw that it was littered with sweet-peas. Their colour got on his nerves—magenta, crimson; magenta, crimson. He tried to pick them up, and they escaped. He trod them underfoot, and they multiplied and danced in the triumph of ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... him, and he advanced further into the musty porch hoping to find a bell. But as he did so his ear caught the distant sound of shuffling feet. The shuffle of feet drew nearer and presently a beam of light shone out from under the door. A quavering ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... would have gone, too: he was only looking round before locking up for the night. Then these things came—combined in the person of an old man, Antony Bartle, who opened the door, pushed in a queer, wrinkled face, and asked in a quavering voice if anybody ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... one, father!" she gasped in a voice quavering with glad excitement. "Lizzie's little girl, our own little grandchild! We shall have a child about the place again, something to love and work for. You see, Lizzie turns to us in her trouble, poor girl, and it must be a terrible trouble to her," with a momentary sadness dimming the joy ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... kiss for that nice bun?" the old gentleman said in a quavering old voice. Elsie went timidly, and gave him a small hasty kiss on ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... had envisioned. He took it upon himself to repair this lack, and in a shady wine-house behind the palace, called the Barangipan, he made the acquaintance of a girl-musician named Soek Panjoebang. He found her enticing tones of quavering sweetness from the gamelan, an instrument well-loved in Old Bali. Soek Panjoebang had the delicate features and transparent skin of Sumatra, the supple long limbs of Arabia and in a pair of wide and golden eyes a heritage ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... after seeing every little, tired form made as comfortable as possible with quilts and blankets from the farmwife's stores, laid herself down upon the floor beside us, after commending herself and us to the God she loved and trusted, raised her head and spoke to us once more in her sweet, hopeful, quavering old tones: ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... many winters are on my head to go on journeys now," she said, in a feeble, quavering voice. "Is it far that my ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... immediately took up their little infants (one had been born during the night), others led the very small children by the hand, and with a general concert, they burst into the long, quavering, and shrill yell that denotes rejoicing. I watched them as they retreated over the plain to their deserted homes, and I took a coldly polite farewell of the Koordi. The looks of astonishment of the Koordi's troops as I passed through their camp were almost comic. I shall report this ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... His voice, quavering with fury, awakened the others also out of their sleep; and after he had shortly and severely rebuked them for their laziness, he commissioned Epagathos to give the prefect, Macrinus, immediate orders not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... visitor in Philadelphia, waiting on a hot street-corner for a car to Fairmount Park, overheard a quavering voice singing the same hymn and saw an emaciated hand caressing a little plant in an open window—and carried away the picture of a fading life, ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... turf, and in half a minute they were amidst of a rout of men a-horseback, more than a score, whose armour and weapons gleamed in the moonlight: yet when these riders were gotten there, they were silent, till one said in a quavering voice as if afeard: "Otter, Otter! what is this? A minute ago and we could see the fire, and the tree, and men and horses about them: and now, lo you! there is naught save two great grey stones lying ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... here for?" roared Leroux, but in a quavering voice that did not sound like his own. "Get out of the way or ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... decks, looked down with interest upon a prehistoric craft in which lay a number of poor emaciated blacks and Arabs, clad for the most part in scanty cotton rags. These poor creatures feebly extended skinny hands and feebly raised quavering voices, as they begged for water and a little rice, only water and a little rice in the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate. Their tins, lotahs and goat-skins were filled, bags of rice, bread and flour were ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... farm are of the fiber of poetry. The silence of the snowy aisles of the forest, the whirring flight of partridges, the impudent bark of squirrels, the quavering voices of owls and coons, the music of the winds in the high trees,—all these impressions unite in my mind like parts of a woodland symphony. I soon learned to distinguish the raccoon's mournful call from the quavering cry of the owl, and I joined ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... cheer. He came falteringly toward them, and stood for a moment uncertain. Then—for the scope of his cultivation did not include the civility of lifting his hat—he said, "Which of ye two wimin hev los' a child?" His voice was quavering, even sympathetic, and very gentle as he ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... playing on the piano, rolling the chords after the grandiose manner of pianists fifty years ago. A voice seemed to be singing an old ballad. As the girl mounted the steps the voice came more distinctly to her. It was quavering and unsure, but with a moan of passion the ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... back with load of many days, His eyepits red with rust of ancient tears, His dim orbs blear with rheum, his toothless jaws Wagging with palsy and the fright to see So many and such joy. One skinny hand Clutched a worn staff to prop his quavering limbs, And one was pressed upon the ridge of ribs Whence came in gasps the heavy painful breath. "Alms!" moaned he, "give, good people! for I die Tomorrow or the next day!" then the cough Choked him, but still he stretched his palm, and stood Blinking, and groaning 'mid his spasms, "Alms!" Then those ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... and suddenly began to sing a Neapolitan song, in a faint, compressed head-voice, looking up at her again as his lips moved, looking straight into her face with a curious mocking caress as the muted voix blanche came through his lips at her, amid the louder quavering of the mandoline. The sound penetrated her like a thread of fire, hurting, but delicious, the high thread of his voice. She could see the Adam's apple move in his throat, his brows tilted as he looked along his lashes at her all the time. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... in a quavering voice, "forty years, man and boy, have I served your Majesty, and your Majesty's late lamented father, and never have I ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... melancholy failure. Rosie sang in such a dismayed, quavering voice that no one could hear her, and everyone was relieved when she finally broke down and had to leave before the clock in the steeple had a chance to strike ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... left standing on the wooden pavement in the midst of a great loneliness, yet enveloped in the afterglow, his soul roseate, his being quavering, his expression, like his cane, instantaneously arrested. With such promptitude and finish was he disposed of, that, had Miss Carewe been aware of his name and the condition wrought in him by the single stroke, she could have sought only the terse Richard of England ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... was set before them. Up till midnight a sort of religious solemnity prevailed. But at the stroke of twelve all this was changed. Constraint gave way to license; pious hymns were replaced by Bacchanalian ditties, and the shrill quavering notes of the village fiddle hardly rose above the roar of voices that went up from the merry brotherhood of the Green Wolf. Next day, the twenty-fourth of June or Midsummer Day, was celebrated by the same personages with ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... quavering voice grew hard with indignation. "It's somebody who's trying to get a good funeral under ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... purlieus of Soho. No words of its shabby meanness! But that is our prison-cell In the jail of weary London. Therein for us must dwell The hope of the world that shall be, that rose a glimmering spark As the last thin flame of our pleasure sank quavering in the dark. ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... her excellency's servant," he said, in hollow, quavering accents. "I live or die at her most ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... from B in his life, and never will. But do you want proof of the power of grace to quicken mind, as well as to convert soul? Come with me up the stairs into dear old R.W.'s darksome room, and in the course of our talk you shall hear his quavering voice saying things, quite humbly and naturally, about the glory of his Saviour, and the way of salvation, and the joy and peace of his heart in God, which are not only loving ascriptions but clear and sound divinity. It is good to be ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... quavering emphasis, "one can depend upon you, a man can depend upon you. What you undertake you carry through, even if it's only the putting on his feet of—of—I never thought to be a verger, never. I never could have looked up to such ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... moment the game began there was dead silence in the room—a silence so oppressive that the click of the balls sounded sharp and clear, and the whizzing hum of the grasshoppers, moving in swarms, came in rolling crescendoes and quavering diminuendoes from the parched and barren paddocks all around, as distinctly as if the table had been set out in the open bush. From the start it was evident both players were doing their best to win, and while the local confidence was not shaken in Tony, it was ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... o'er the edge of the moon And wistfully gazed on the sea Where the Gryxabodill madly whistled a tune To the air of "Ti-fol-de-ding-dee." The quavering shriek of the Fly-up-the-creek Was fitfully wafted afar To the Queen of the Wunks as she powdered her cheek With the pulverized rays ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... when her amazed eyes fell upon that familiar form. But close behind the little flower girls came the four bridesmaids, gowned in delicate and garlanded with wild roses; and the sight of the older sister's sweet face restored the young musician's composure, so that after only one or two quavering notes, she whistled more blithely than ever. This certainly was a day ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... last and kindled a red band along the east. The gray light at length grew more clear. A coyote on the bluff raised a long and quavering cry, like some soul in torture. As if it were his own voice, Meriwether Lewis stirred, rose, drew back the blanket from his shoulders, and turned ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... ghost-like toward her through that eerie barring of shadow and ruddy light. But the place was a dry, dead shell; no pulse of life seemed ever to have beaten within those ravaged walls. She summoned her energies to call, send out her voice in a cry for them, then stood—the quavering sound unuttered—hearing a ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... later Long Jim came out of slumberland, but he opened only one eye. The bird was trilling and quavering in the most wonderful way, telling him as he understood it, to go back whence he had come, and he went at once. Then came Paul, not more than half awakened, and the music of the song lulled him. He did not have time to ask himself any question before he had returned to sleep, and the bird sang ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Through pureness filtered crystal-clear, And know the pleasure sprinkled bright By simple singing of delight; Shrill, irreflective, unrestrained, Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustained Without a break, without a fall, Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical, Perennial, quavering up the chord Like myriad dews of sunny sward That trembling into fulness shine, And sparkle dropping argentine; Such wooing as the ear receives From zephyr caught in choric leaves Of aspens when their chattering net Is flushed to white ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wretched tragedies set to music, where the scenes are contrived for no other purpose than to lug in, as it were by the ears, three or four ridiculous songs, to give a favorite actress an opportunity of exhibiting her pipe. Let who will or can die away in raptures at the trills of a eunuch quavering the majestic part of Caesar or Cato, and strutting in a foolish manner upon the stage. For my part, I have long ago renounced these paltry entertainments, which constitute the glory of modern Italy, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... to his ears through the forest behind. It began like the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into a quavering, appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away. Almost as the last note ceased another commenced at the same low pitch, with only the rest of a heart-beat between the two, and surged forth ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... clutch, the old woman shook her, as if she had been a slender weed, and an ashen hue settled upon her wrinkled features, as she cried in an unnaturally shrill quavering tone: ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... no doubts of Stukeley when he saw The wherry close beside them. He but wrapped His cloak a little closer round his face. Our boat rocked in their wash when Stukeley dropped The mask. We saw him give the sign, and heard His high-pitched quavering voice—"IN THE KING'S NAME!" Raleigh rose to his feet. "I am under arrest?" He said, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... down the stairs barefoot. Then came two revolver shots in quick succession, a shower of plaster, a hoarse cry, a heavy fall, and, from above, a loud scuffling followed by the slamming of a door and the noisy turning of a key; a brief interval of silence and then a quavering whisper. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... rose into a cry of quavering passion. The children stared at him in amazement. But as Davy, aggrieved, was defending himself, the old man laid a violent hand on his arm and silenced him. His eyes, which were black and keen ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a tune that is sung. But by placing my hand on another's throat and cheek, I enjoy the changes of the voice. I know when it is low or high, clear or muffled, sad or cheery. The thin, quavering sensation of an old voice differs in my touch from the sensation of a young voice. A Southerner's drawl is quite unlike the Yankee twang. Sometimes the flow and ebb of a voice is so enchanting that my fingers quiver with exquisite pleasure, even if I do not ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... he cried in his thin, quavering voice, though what she meant by a "witness" was more ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... his thin, quavering voice—"no doubt Mr. Crow's help would be worth a kernel of corn to anybody who was in trouble. If his advice was good, no one would object to paying for it. And if it proved to be bad, no one would miss ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... as soon—as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose, who happened to stand a little apart, and, being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... probable that it never heard the Cheap Jack's softer intonations, for its protuberant bones gave a quiver beneath the scarred skin as he yelled. Then its drooping ears pricked faintly, the quavering forelegs were braced, one desperate jog of the tottering load of oddities, and it set slowly ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... carried—uproariously. Then poor old Richards got up, and his wife rose and stood at his side. Her head was bent down, so that none might see that she was crying. Her husband gave her his arm, and so supporting her, he began to speak in a quavering voice: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... shared amongst us; but it was fiery stuff, and even at the first increased rather than allayed our thirst. Most of the crew were lying down now; but one had climbed to the roof of the forecastle, and stood there singing in a weak, quavering voice. Jose spoke to him soothingly; but he only laughed, and continued his weird song. His face haunted me; even when darkness closed like a pall around us I could still see it. He sang on and on in the gloom, and it appeared to me that he was wailing our death-chant. Presently there was silence, ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... to read, or read aloud to her out of his Bible, which was yellow and worn with much turning over of its leaves. He could sing a little still, though now his teeth were gone his voice was weak and quavering; but he made Joan sing with him, and took care to choose such hymns as his mistress had been taught when she was a child, knowing well she could not help hearing them through the unceiled rafters overhead. The newer hymns which ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... end of the room. She began—a ridiculous attempt. She stopped, gritted her teeth, began again. Once more the result was absurd; but this time she was able to keep on, not improving, but maintaining her initial off-key quavering. She stopped. ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... when sung by a voice which, owing to recent and unabated vexation, was continually on the verge of tears. Nothing, perhaps, is more thoroughly tragic than a really lively melody intoned by a voice quavering with emotion, and even Sir Joseph, who did not understand a word of the song, was deeply grateful ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... proud of being with her. She has gone and Julia Baron has gone; Hortense has outlived them all. She must be very old, eighty-five at least. It would be wonderful to hear her sing "Mon cher amant, je te jure" in the quavering voice of eighty-five; it would be wonderful to hear her sing it because she doesn't know how wonderful she is; the old light of love requires an interpreter, and she has had many; many great poets have voiced her ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... upon the roaring billows. From some melodious swain came a freakish fiddling, which leaped and danced like mad, now here, now there, like an audible will-o'-the-wisp. A dolorous whistle chimed harmonies, and with regular sibilation came to time, quavering out the chromatic moments of this nasal hour. High over all floated a faint whisper,—a song-cloud rising from the dream-mist of a peaceful breast,—a revelation timidly exhaled to the disembodied spirits of the air. Its hazy lullaby breathed down as from distant heights, and murmured of celestial ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... a wee wisehead!" gasped Bambo, in his hoarse, quavering voice, at the same time drawing the child still closer to his side. "You've put new life into me. Here I've been fearing as how I should never reach Firgrove, and blaming the Lord for forgetting us. And now, ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... to the diddling drone of Piqueur's quavering voice. In the clear sweetness of the May morning above the twittering of the birds it raised itself, the quaint measures delighting her ears. Even in Piqueur's thin falsetto the old melody sang itself—tender, graceful, spirited, never lagging—he was dropping pea seeds into the ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... her behavior fully, for the sake of others," Agathemer resumed. "When she sights a victim she flattens herself out on the ground and gives her long, quavering squall. If the victim remains stationary she crawls toward it very slowly, almost imperceptibly, moving one paw only at a time. If it runs about she ceases her advance and pivots around until it is again stationary and she facing it. She keeps that up until she is within springing ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Old Dodden's high-pitched quavering voice rose and fell, mournful as he surveyed the present, vehement as he recorded the heroic past. He spoke of the rural exodus and shook his head mournfully. "We old 'uns were content wi' earth and the open sky like our feythers before us, but wi' the children 'tis first machines to save ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... are much mistaken,' said the old quavering voice. 'How little you must have thought! Why, you don't seem even to know the good of the things you are constantly doing. Now don't mistake me. I don't mean you are good for doing them. It is a good ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... garments that had seemed to her to be streaming and unsightly rags, were merely the picturesque habiliments of a young artist, apparently newly translated from the Boulevard Montparnasse. At the sight of the stranger a heart-sinking terror seemed to take possession of her, and so, quaking and quavering in mortal ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... and honest sentiment could inspire. He first told the story of the wrecked life of the brother, and pointed to the bent figure of the hermit of Little Moxie, standing in the shadows. Once or twice Joshua lifted his quavering voice in feeble protest, but the ringing tones of the young man overbore his halting speech. Several times Connick was obliged to force the colonel back on the deacons' seat, each time with more ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... said the old man in a weak, quavering voice. "Would the laddie were here the noo. I'm a sair burden ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... years in a tower, Seizes this hour Of tumult and wind. He files through the rusted bar, Leans his face to the rain, laughs up at the night, Slides down the knotted sheet, swings over the wall, To fall to the street with a cat-like fall, Slinks round a quavering rim of windy light, And at last is gone, Leaving his empty cell for the pallor of ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... solemnity, now glorious in resplendent autumn color of pearly beauty. Here — thrilling sound to huntsman — echoes the wild melody of the hound, awakening the solitude with deep-mouthed bay as he pursues the swift career of deer. The quavering note of the loon on the lake, the mournful hoot of the owl at night, with rarer forest voices have also to the lover of nature their peculiar charm, and form the ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... thrice on Sundays, this extraordinary company gathered bare-headed to the poop for a religious service which it would be colourless to call frantic. It began decorously enough with a quavering exposition of some portion of Holy Writ by Captain Colenso. But by and by (and especially at the evening office) his listeners kindled and opened on him with a skirmishing fire of "Amens." Then, worked by degrees to an ecstasy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and melted. The Doctor applied it to the cut with deft fingers, and with a strange condescension of manner in one so proud. My heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little; and on a sudden BLUENOSE raised his dripping hands, and in a quavering kind of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... an aged woman, obeyed with tottering steps, and, reaching the massive portal, undid the guichet, or lattice, and asked with a quavering voice: ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... he counted the notes in the call. One, two, three, four—and a flood of relief swept over him. It was MacDonald. They had used that signal in their hunting, when they had wished to locate each other without frightening game. Always there were three notes in the big gray owl's quavering cry. The fourth was human. He put his hands to his mouth and sent back an answer, emphasizing the fourth note. The light breeze had died down for a moment, and Aldous heard the old mountaineer's reply as it floated faintly back to him through the forest. Continuing ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... owned islands and continents and deserts and seas; a great tract of the world belonged to her ... and here he was standing on the very spot where she had sat in her carriage, offering thanks in old quavering accents to the Almighty God for allowing her to reign for sixty years. The fact that he was able to stand on that very spot seemed comical to him. There ought to have been a burning bush on the place where "the Queen" had said her prayers. ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... illumined by the rays of the full hunter's moon, which transforms the trailing streamers of dewy Spanish moss into long-drawn chains of sparkling silver. From swamp and foliage the voices of the night fill the balmy air with quavering wailings, punctured by the occasional screams of wild-cats and hootings of the melancholy owls. Here in this forest primeval, mid the murmuring pines and star-eyed magnolias, nature rules supreme, uncontaminated ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... in mortification over his blunders. The Fiddling Boss obediently got down his fiddle from the smoky corner beside the fireplace and played a weird old tune or two, and then they sang. First the men, with hoarse, quavering approach and final roar of wild sweetness; then Margaret and the Boy in duet, and finally Margaret alone, with a few bashful chords on the fiddle, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... and listen to me," said Archie, his voice quavering with anger; "you can't play the fool with me in this fashion. You mean to leave me here with a man I shot; and you think I'm going to follow him! What if he never goes; what if he stays ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... balmy; the whitethorn tinder which he sat, and the profusion of wild flowers that spangled the bosom of the green glen, breathed their fragrance around him, and steeped, the emotions and remembrances which crowded thickly on him in deep and exquisite tenderness. Up in the air he heard the quavering hum of the snipe, as it rose and fell in undulating motion, and the creak of the rail in many directions around him. From an adjoining meadow in the distance, the merry voices of the village children came ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... aware of the presence of a ghastly creature in the room of dim outlines and uncertain proportions. One moment it seemed to pervade the entire apartment, while at another it would become invisible, but always leaving behind it a distinct consciousness of its presence. Its voice, when it spoke, was quavering and gusty. It said, "I am the leaver of footsteps and the spiller of gouts of blood. I tramp upon corridors. Charles Dickens has alluded to me. I make strange and disagreeable noises. I snatch letters and place invisible hands on people's wrists. I am cheerful. I burst into peals ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... read the latest, which was a scrawl in quavering characters over three telegraph forms. It was from Ladcock at Gilgit, saying that he was having a row of his own with the navvies there, and that he could send no reinforcements at present. If he quieted the trouble in time he would try and hold the Mazeno Pass, ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... them start, and watched them as they tramped over the short, crisp grass of an upland pasture, and she could just distinguish the words of a hymn they sung, John's deep, sweet tenor leading their quavering treble:— ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... become so completely possest by the imaginary scenes and characters connected with it, that I seemed to be actually living among them. Everything brought them as it were before my eyes; and as the door of the dining-room opened, I almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence quavering forth his favorite ditty: ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... the building near by came the twanging of a string, like a banjo string being tuned in fantastic quarter tones. A few sharp notes were struck, at random it seemed, followed by a few bars of a quavering song and then a burst of clownish laughter. Young bloods of Nagasaki had called in geisha to amuse them ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... a choir with a hundred tiny voices piping from the shadow of its foliage. As they passed the lakes the heavy gray stork flapped up in front of them, and they saw the wild duck whirring off in a long V against the blue sky, or heard the quavering cry of the ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... little afraid, for I know I should fall heavy!" said the Goat-father, in a quavering voice; but he did as he was told, and shutting his eyes firmly, he slipped from the window-sill and fell with a heavy flop into the arms ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... of an earlier evening, the syllables of Paliser's name had awakened echoes of old Academy nights and Mapleson's "grand revivals" of the Trovatore, echoes thin and quavering, yet still repeating hymns in glory of the man's angelic papa. On the way from ham and eggs to Harlem, she had, in consequence, conjured, for Cassy's benefit, with performing fleas. But when, on this afternoon, M. P. Jr., had come and waved cheques at her, she had felt that her worst hopes were ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... in a quavering voice; "three days have I been on the road. I go to my son, who is one of the King's regarders at Brockenhurst. He has ever said that he would care for me in mine ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was pursuing a quavering course like a snipe down the avenue. He was a miserable performer on a bicycle. Not for twenty years had he bestridden one, and he did not understand such new devices as free-wheels and change of gears. The mounting had been the worst part, and ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... so easily, and showed himself capable of a copious crescendo, which was rendering it doubtful whether the rose would not predominate over the mowers, when old Kester, with an entirely unmoved and immovable aspect, suddenly set up a quavering treble—as if he had been an alarum, and the time was come for ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... like warm Summer nights When stars shine in the quiet river. And against the lights Blundering insects knock, And the 'Rathaus' clock Booms twice, through the shrill sounds Of flutes and horns in the lamplit grounds. Pressed against him in the mazy wavering Of a country dance, with her short breath quavering She leans upon the beating, throbbing Music. Laughing, sobbing, Feet gliding after sliding feet; His—hers— The ballroom blurs— She feels the air Lifting her hair, And the lapping of water on the stone stair. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... out, do ye, dearie? Well, you jist shall git out," came the rejoinder in a high, quavering voice, and slowly the old woman lifted herself, with many groans and "ouches" ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... one day, somewhere in the third quarter of the fifteenth century, the long-drawn chant of the rispetto, telling perhaps how the singer's sweetheart was beautiful as the star Diana, so beautiful as a baby that the Pope christened her with his own hands; the quavering nasal cadence of the stornello ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... A quavering, tiny voice, that came from Anthony, said: "How d' ye do—how d' ye do;" sounding like the first effort of a fife. But Anthony did ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dark wood with a face minutely carved and fretted to represent the portal of Amiens Cathedral, and a long black table, littered with large sheets of printed matter in heavy black type, that diffused into the cold room a faint smell of ink. The old man sat quavering in the ingle. The light of the low fire glimmered on his silver hair, on his black square cap two generations old; and, in his old eyes that had seen three generations of changes, it twinkled starrily as if they were spinning round. In the cock ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... a state of collapse, obeyed. The door of the dining-room, which Leopold knew of old, was thrown open, and a quavering voice heralded "His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, and the ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... frantic applause, and supper adjourned hastily, while every one hurried back to the loft; in the midst old Andy, his quavering voice a little raised in excitement, his fiddle held firmly in one hand. "Too old to work," some called him, wondering why David Linton kept the old fencer, when younger men were always wanting work on Billabong; and now, as he faced the long room with his faded blue ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... who had entered it a few hours before. Nearly exhausted; he finally reached the shore, where he sat wearily on a rock and cried to the turtle. But he called to it in vain; the turtle never came, and soon his quavering voice was ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... hut, the ill-assorted trio watched the insufferable hours crawl slowly by. Dobrinton was too frightened to be conversational, Vanessa was too mortified to open her lips, and Clyde was moodily silent. The little Limberg negociant plucked up heart once to give a quavering rendering of "Yip-I-Addy," but when he reached the statement "home was never like this" Vanessa tearfully begged him to stop. And silence fastened itself with growing insistence on the three captives who were so tragically herded together; thrice a day they drew near to ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... weakly and slowly, his opening words almost inaudible, so that the throng of people before him leaned forward in sympathetic intentness, and silence became absolute in the great hall except for the high quavering of his tones. But then came a miracle of reinvigoration. Little by little his voice swelled until it was full, sonorous, richly warm and compelling, the words pouring from him with a fluency that enchained. Little by little his ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... a meagre lamp, there was a fresh, light-haired young man, with a merry face, who amid loud bursts of laughter was embracing a very audaciously attired young girl; and near the lamp sat an old crone spinning and singing in a quavering voice. As the young man did not laugh constantly, fragments of the old woman's ditty reached the priest; it was something ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... from her trance of terror with a quavering breath. She did not understand what had passed, nor a word of what the labourers had said; and in her belief over the peril escaped, and her utter fatigue, she gave the child to Anastasia, lay back, and closed her eyes. A sudden ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... where the words, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," are repeated, the weak, quavering voice of the sick boy joined hers; and, when she ceased, the emaciated face was placid, the great dread had ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... went on, and then the warriors ceased suddenly to sing, although they continued their dance. A moment later a cry which thrilled every nerve came from a far point in the dark background. It was the scalp yell, the most terrible of all Indian cries, long, high-pitched, and quavering, having in it something of the barking howl of the wolf and the fiendish shriek of a murderous maniac. The warriors instantly took it up, and gave it ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... an orange sky, Trees that the wind shook terribly, Like a harsh spume along the road, Quavering up like withered arms, Writhing like streams, like twisted charms Of hot lead flung in snow. Below The iron ice stung like a goad, Slashing the torn shoes from my feet, And all ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... last fall," the child went on, her voice quavering but her eyes resolute, "that if Daddy ever wanted to sell me, you'd buy me. I think I ought to be worth a thousand dollars. I can do so much work around the house and help you train Margery! I can work ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... seized him by the legs and dragged him into the boat, to sit upon the bottom, gasping, spitting, and rubbing the ooze from his eyes. But it was a good two minutes before he was sufficiently recovered to look round angrily, and in a highly-pitched quavering voice exclaimed: ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... worked and his quavering old voice kept tune and rhythm to a remarkable degree as ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... bell, notwithstanding the quavering of its old, cracked voice, had very soon resumed its authority; and the man who guided the whole establishment denied himself the slightest recreation. Sober as an apprentice, he left three-fourths ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The patient Organ-blower bends; I see his figure sink and rise, (Forgive me, Heaven, my wandering eyes!) A moment lost, the next half seen, His head above the scanty screen, Still measuring out his deep salaams Through quavering ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... eyeless sockets. "Some day," she repeated, "Jennie shall see. Not long now—not long!" Her pastor patted her hand. The silence of the dark room was broken by Blind Jennie's voice, rising cracked and quavering: "Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?" The shrill chorus ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... looped the long chain over his arm, slung the organ over his back, and went toiling up the road, with Major Monkey perched on top of the hand-organ, Jolly Robin had a very queer feeling. He flew down and alighted upon Farmer Greene's fence and trilled a quavering good-by. Major Monkey stood up and made a low bow to him. "He's going South, after all!" Jolly Robin said to himself. If that was so, old dog Spot must have been glad of it. Anyhow, he dashed out of the ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... seen to feed on boughs so high as to be obliged to stand on stones, to get at their food. They are likewise fed on maize and tares; the poultry is of a large brood. The cocks are atrociously noisy, two in particular had such lengthened, cracked or quavering voices, that they were quite a nuisance. We put up in the house of the Dumpa or head man. It is situated on the top of a stony, and a bitter cold place, exposed to the four winds of heaven. House very large, and our host a little man with great airs, and a red coat or wrapper of coarse ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... in the smoky Oven. The Whimper or the faltering Wail of Children, the quavering Sigh of overlaced Women, and the long-drawn Profanity of Men—these were what the Fool-Killer heard as he looked upon the ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... singers, but by the whole assembly at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musical instrument, the words being given out, two lines at a time, by the clerk. There is something in the sonorous quavering of the harsh voices, in the lank and hollow faces of the men, and the sour solemnity of the women, which bespeaks this a strong-hold of intolerant zeal and ignorant enthusiasm. The preacher enters the pulpit. He is a coarse, hard-faced man of forbidding aspect, clad in rusty ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... smote the table with his fist. "By Indur!" he swore strangely, his voice quavering with joy; "I had not thought of that!" He jumped up and began to move excitedly to and fro. "I am free! None but you and I know of the passing of the Token and the delivery of the message—none can possibly ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... crackling of crows, nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps, buzzing of dromedaries, mumbling of rabbits, cricking of ferrets, humming of wasps, mioling of tigers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitlings, clamouring of scarfs, whimpering of fulmarts, booing of buffaloes, warbling of nightingales, quavering of mavises, drintling of turkeys, coniating of storks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of magpies, murmuring of stock-doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming of beagles, guarring of puppies, snarling ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... filled with the china roses that flowered so profusely in the garden at Baker's Farm. But Mrs. Morrison could not for all that dissemble the disappointment and sternness of her heart, and the old lady glanced up at her as she came in with a kind of quavering fearfulness, like that of a little child who is afraid it may be going to be whipped, or of a conscientious dog who ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the quavering, foolish words startled Thornton; "you best get aboard, sir, anchor's lifting!" Jed staggered ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... vigour; and the figure that went flying to Tergou was truly weird-like and terrible: so old and wizened the face; so white and reverend the streaming hair; so baleful the eye; so fierce the fury which shook the bent frame that went spurring like mad; while the quavering voice yelled, "I'll make their hearts ache. I'll make their hearts ache. I'll make their hearts ache. I'll make their hearts ache. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... replied the Professor, his thin, quavering voice sounding strangely weak after the deep-throated bellow ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... home, he would call down and say in his quavering old voice, "Who's there?" and we'd answer, and right away we'd hear his trap door in the floor of his house open, and hear his steps coming down his stairway and hear him lift the big wooden latch that held the door shut, and then when he'd see ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... he could hear the old man quavering out a hymn or two on the porch outside: and when, worn out with the day, he went to sleep, the Red Fox was reading his Bible by the light of a tallow dip. It is fatefully strange when people, whose lives tragically intersect, look back to their ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... voice of Ted Slavin was what first drew their attention; and it seemed to come from around the next corner. Then followed a quavering voice, pleading ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... rose among the trees, and no welcome sight of Henry or the horses came to his eyes. For all he knew, he might be going farther from the camp at every step. Putting aside caution, he made a trumpet of his two hands, and uttered the long, quavering cry that serves as a signal in the forest. It came back in a somber echo from the darkening wilderness, and Paul saw, with a little shiver, that the sun was now going down behind the trees. The breeze rose, and the leaves rustled together with a soft hiss, like ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in any doubt about it," the old lady said dryly. And as Warren was silent she went on with quavering vigor: "It is not for us to judge her husband's infirmities. ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... crawl.—"I want the fore-top-mast staysail run up smartly," said the master, very loudly; "if you can't manage it standing up you must do it lying down—that's all. Bear a hand!"—"Come along! Let's give the old girl a chance," urged the boatswain.—"Aye! aye! Wear ship!" exclaimed quavering voices. The forecastle men, with reluctant faces, prepared to go forward. Mr. Baker pushed ahead, grunting, on all fours to show the way, and they followed him over the break. The others lay still with a vile hope in their hearts of not being ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... said; and stepping out from his open window into the garden, he again bent his ear to listen. The tremulous voices came nearer and nearer, and words could now be distinguished, breaking through the primitive quavering melody of 'The Mayers' Song' known to all the country side since ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli |
